Case Study - Newquay Community Orchard

A really exciting community project is taking place at Newquay Community orchard. The seven-acre site already includes a large fruit orchard planted with our trees, a forest garden and a wood-working area that will shortly be running City and Guilds qualifications. Beautiful new ‘Cornish hedges’ form a walled garden for a large vegetable growing area and plant nursery, as well as what promises to be the longest fruit tunnel in the south-west! It is still in its early stages, but lots of hard work from the core team and their volunteers are making big things happen.

The site is fairly exposed to the strong south-westerlies so the shelter belts they have planted will make all the difference to the plants and fruit trees doing well. They have planted a mixture of poplar and alder as their main hedging species. For every 1m of vertical hedging, 8m of horizontal shelter is provided so don’t underestimate the value of planting a shelter belt on exposed sites.

Planning is currently going through for a new community building, restaurant and amphitheatre to make this in to Falmouth’s most exciting new venue.